Social Media

Enough Already: MLM Invades Twitter’s Trending Topics

It might be starting to sound like a broken record, but the issue of Twitter trending topic spam continues to be a major problem that is derailing the usefulness of one of the microblogging tool’s best features.

Last week, we saw spammers trying to game popular topics by simply including the trending topic (Blink 182 song “Apple Shampoo” in our example) along with their marketing message, and then the fairly obvious but nonetheless effective phishing attempt: #twitterpornnames.

Today, good old fashioned multi-level marketing (MLM) has invaded trending topics. The website, called “Twitter Online System,” promises boatloads of new followers as you reach different “levels,” though it doesn't offer much of an explanation as to the "how." All I can say about this one is … enough already.

Here’s a bit more on how it works: Provide your username and password, and the service sends out a message to your followers with a referral link. The more people that sign-up via your link, the more followers you supposedly gain. It’s not exactly clear what “Twitter Online System” gains from this deal, other than a boatload of traffic to their website, plus your Twitter credentials, and who knows what they plan to do with those.

I haven’t entered my credentials personally – for one, any new Twitter app should be using Twitter’s now publicly available OAuth beta, not to mention I don’t feel like spamming my followers – but hundreds if not thousands of others already have, making the terms “I Just Increased” and “Followers By Using” top trending topics this morning.

One thing is clear: Twitter is past the tipping point, and like other social networks before it, it’s now being hit with both the good (rapid user growth and mainstream adoption) and the bad (unscrupulous marketers). All the while, with Twitter trending topics becoming virtually useless, third-party search tools and meme trackers like Tweetmeme and OneRiot continue to look more attractive.

And perhaps its ultimately these third-party tools that will save Twitter from itself. For those of us that care about user experience and these types of issues, there are so many tools you can use to avoid the bad stuff that the problem might not be as significant as it seems on the surface. Nonetheless, you can count me out of the "Twitter Online System."

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